Posts Tagged ‘discussion’

The British Journal of Photography announced recently that South African photographer Michelle Sank’s image “Man asleep on the Golden Mile, Durban, South Africa.” had won the single image category of its International Photography Award.

The image, which shows a man asleep in a park just off the Golden Mile in Durban, was described by judges Nick Galvin, Bruno Ceschel and Diane Smyth as both surreal and disturbing, and was picked out from 338 other entries because of its quiet, enduring intensity. “The more I look at it, the more powerful it becomes,” commented Galvin, who manages the archive at Magnum London.

Nikon’s President Makoto Kimura did an interview with Reuters a couple days ago in which he stated that Nikon is trying to develop a camera that creates a new camera market.

A lot of companies make bold claims about their upcoming products “changing photography forever”, but the products usually don’t deliver much beyond increased megapixels, improvements in quality, and flashier specs. Sony actually succeeded in changing the landscape of DSLRs recently with their new pellicle mirror cameras.

In addition to Nikon, Pentax is also rumored to be developing a camera that is unlike any existing camera on the market.

Here’s the specific quote made by Kimura,

We want to propose another type of photography. I don’t think there is any need to limit it to two categories. We want to create a new market.

Let’s put on our thinking caps. What do you think these companies might have up their sleeves? Can you think of anything they might be building that might actually change the digital camera industry?

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at the DPReview forums regarding how the human eye compares to the technology we have in digital cameras.

Here are some of the findings that were compiled from various sources on the web:

Sensor size: 22mm in diameter

Resolution: 576 megapixels

Sensitivity: 1 – 800 ISO

Focal length: 22mm – 35mm

Aperture: f/2.1 – f/8.3

Another interesting idea that came up was the possibility of using the human eye as the lens and sensor for future imaging devices:

Maybe future “cameras” will actually link to your eyes – since the eyeball is such a great lens, who knows? Getting signal from the eye is the trick – would require a surgical implant or a means of reading brainwaves. Maybe that’s 200 years out – similar time [frame] the Mayo clinic is talking about for correcting double/triple vision.

Perhaps in the future we’ll all be documenting our lives at 576 megapixels through our eyes and ears, and storing the photos and videos on petabyte external hard drives at home.

What do you think of this discussion? Is there anything that jumps out at you as being wrong, or do you agree with the comparison for the most part?

Photography and electronics enthusiast Michal Zalewski recently built a simple scanning device using a diode laser and custom gearbox that allows him to create 2.5D images when used with a Canon 5D Mark II. These are regular photographs that are enhanced with accurate per-pixel depth information.

Here’s an example Zalewski gives of a regular photograph and its scan data:

Cameras used for everyday photography do not record any information about how far away things in the photograph are. They simply record what they “see”. A 2.5D camera would allow you to capture photographs with apertures (i.e. a large depth of field), and then decide the focus and depth of field afterward in post-processing.

Speaking on the explosive improvement of camerephone technology in Helsinki yesterday, Nokia Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki shared his vision of the future for cameraphones — a future without DSLRs.

Pointing at a professional photographer in the room, Vanjoki said, “There will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses.”

From a poll we ran on PetaPixel last week, we found that 59% of our readers didn’t believe cameraphones would replace even compact cameras. We didn’t even think to mention DSLRs, since there currently does not seem to be any answer as to how cameraphones will address their disadvantage of smaller sensors and poorer optics.

Perhaps these quotes and articles aren’t intended to suggest that the DSLR market will be replaced by cell phones, but rather that the quality difference will be reduced to the point that those who simply bought DSLR cameras for casual photography might be satisfied with cameraphone quality.

If that’s the case, these claims might be true. Enough consumers may buy into the megapixel myth and eschew fancier cameras for the increased “megapixel power” of cameraphones. In the same speech, Vanjoki also predicted that cellphones will be capable of filming HD video within the next 12 months.

Once we see a “Last 3 Minutes” caliber film shot with a cameraphone, we’ll be believers. Until then, we’ll keep bringing our DSLR to weddings.

Reuters had made contact with the photographer, an Icelandic local, and sought access to the original. It transpired that before being acquired by the wire service, the photograph had been in the possession of an Icelandic newspaper and it was there that some fairly liberal digital dodging and burning took place. When a comparison was made with the original, it became obvious that post production had been applied to sufficient extent that it violated Reuters’ very firm position on digital enhancement. So they retracted the picture and supplied the original in its place, and we dropped that image into the Herald for later editions.

Looking at the before and after photographs shown above, you can see that post-processing was done in order to make the plume of ash look extremely dramatic.

What are your thoughts on how far post-processing can go before it becomes too much?

The Zero Angle Digital Camera is a conceptual design by Sun ho Sin and Jeong eun Park that protects sensitive components by hiding them when not in use.

The clamshell design allows to camera to be stored and carried safely without a dedicated camera case, keeping your LCD safe from scratches and bumps.

The design is reminiscent of a flip phone, except instead of flipping the camera “open”, one half of the camera is swung all the way around to provide the LCD screen for what resembles a traditional point-and-shoot camera.

What would be even more awesome would be if the camera was completely sealed when closed, protecting it completely from things like water, sand, and dirt.

The idea seems simple enough. Perhaps we’ll see this design in a real camera sometime in the near future. What do you think of this concept?

Google Groups hosts an archive of Usenet discussions from as far back as 1981. These discussions often provide an interesting glimpse at the state of the world and what was considered “state of the art”.

On December 18, 1990, someone named Carl Madson started a discussion titled “Future of Photography..?” Here are some of the thoughts and questions he posed:

Seeing as how 2001 is just a little over a decade away, I was wondering what our resident sages/crazy people thought might be happening in the realm of photography/imaging/etc.(?) in ten years (and the intervening period).

Will film still be popular? What percent of consumers, and serious shooters, will be using electronic imaging devices instead, and will we ‘lose’ many folks to video cameras? Will home imaging (/editing/printing/..) computers be commonplace?

Will darkroomers gradually transition from chemicals to electronics, will there be a mix, or ? Only a small set of darkroomers for fine-art photography? Will regulations put an opressive damper on the use of chemicals at home?

How about ethical issues? The manipulation of ‘truth’ via imaging techniques? Showing the world as it really is, vs. making it look better than it is? And the ever-popular censorship issue?

Some of the responses are pretty funny when considering today’s technology, while other predictions seemed to be spot-on:

Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon. […]

At-home image manipulation can become as popular as home tape recording was in the 60’s. Many people will have access to computers that can accept a digital image processing board. There could be a new kind of mini-lab that could handle that medium.

I think that electronic cameras will break into the “point and shoot” market. Their ease of use and quick turnaround are very appealing to snapshooters. Film will still be popular, probably as popular as now or more so. Computer imaging still doesn’t hold a candle to good ol’ silver halides for resolution and color. Some computer scanners do a damn good job, but CCD’s? Not anytime in the near future.

Home editing will be very popular among the snapshooters with their CCD still cameras. Don’t want ugly uncle Bob draining that beer in the background? No problem! A few keystrokes and it’s bye-bye Bob! Auto color-balancing will be handy. People could experiment with toning without all those harsh chemicals. More snapshooters could experience the wonder of black and white. It would be very easy to convert a color picture to black and white. Another keystroke (or maybe keys will be obsolete?) and the print could be sepia toned, for that high-tech old-fashioned look. […]

The old-fashioned silver photography will probably be used, and then transferred to computer via scanners. (I’ve done this myself, actually.) This way editing can be done by computer on those awful, inflexible prints before publication. […]

CCD photos will certainly be impossible to use for documentation. It’s just too damn easy to manipulate them! The theory that a photo constitutes proof has already begun to erode. This will merely help the process along.

ViaU is a new photography service by Mariano Pastor, a 25-year veteran of the Madison Avenue photography industry whose clients include L’Oreal and Lancome.

What sets it apart from other services is the flat rate it charges for photography regardless of who the client is or what the photograph is used for. Clients simply create a layout for the photo via ViaU’s web interface and ship the product to the studio. The photographs are created within 24 hours, and the product is shipped back free of charge.

Now here’s the kicker: the photography is free, and you only pay the flat fee of $224 if you decide to buy unlimited rights to the photograph. On the website Pastor states,

The truth is that great photography doesn’t really have to cost that much. It’s a simple idea, but also a big idea.

Simple enough, that is, to create your layout online and escape all negotiations. You know what you’ll get before you start. Great original photography, to use as you wish, at an affordable price. After twenty-five years of shooting for Madison Ave. I believe Via U! is my most creative accomplishment.

Can’t say I’m complete surprised by this. I know product photography was one of the categories hit hard early on when companies started doing the shots internally so maybe this is just the natural progression of a photographer competing for the bottom dollar there, except something doesn’t feel right to me. Doing this kind of thing for small companies seems like a smart play, delivering the same price to billion dollar companies seems rotten.